


living, really living

by basketofnovas (slashmarks)



Category: The Good Time Girls (2017)
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:55:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25411234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmarks/pseuds/basketofnovas
Summary: After their vengeance is extracted, Ellie, Clementine and Ruth figure out where they're going next.
Relationships: Clementine & Ellie & Ruth (The Good Time Girls), Clementine/Ellie (The Good Time Girls)
Comments: 2
Collections: Every Woman 2020





	living, really living

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evewithanapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/gifts).



> I had a good time making up backstory based on the handful of lines we get from the short. I hope my recipient enjoys what I came up with.
> 
> In case anyone's coming in blind, this canon is [available for free](https://vimeo.com/228075517) online and is slightly under fifteen minutes long.

Ellie was right about one thing, anyway - they did get to keep the horses. 

Ada hadn't wanted anything at the whorehouse that might get traced back to Rufus's gang, just in case any of the men had brothers or sons who took notice of 'em vanishing. So they split up the contents of their saddlebags and coats and passed out some of the little things to the girls, as a thank you and because they'd helped, and Clementine paid off Ada. 

Then the three of them saddled up horses - Clementine on the same mare she always rode, but Ruth and Ellie took new ones - and rode off with the whole group so nobody noticed Ada had a bunch of horses with somebody else's brands on them. 

"Which is smart of her, when you can bet Rufus stole these too, and who knows if the owners are still around to ask?" Clementine said that night. Clementine had grown up in the west, not like Ellie and Ruth, and knew about that kind of thing.

"That likely?" Ruth asked. 

She was putting together a meal for all three of them. Mostly Ruth, who'd been married with her own kitchen and everything, did the cooking. Clementine'd always lived in brothels with board, and Ellie had spent more time with her father, since he hadn't had any boys to teach, so she hadn't really learned to cook yet when they all died. She'd always figure'd there'd be time for that when she wanted to get married.

She shot a look at Clementine and tried not to giggle at that thought. Yeah, that'd happen... Although come to think of it knowing how to cook might've made Clementine take to her in less than three months, so maybe her mother had been right about that. (It had been long enough, she could almost think that without wanting to cry. It helped to know that they were dead, at least.)

"Hard to say," Clementine said, which probably meant she had no clue. "You did a good job with the beef."

Among the contents of the packs had been most of a side of beef, probably the spoils of the gang's last robbery; nobody could trace the brand of a cow that had been butchered and eaten. They'd split that up with the girls too, but Ruth had claimed some of it for the end of the night's ride.

"Easy with fresh meat like that," Ruth said. "We're going to want to use it up tonight, there's no time to stop and dry it."

She stopped at the end of that sentence and looked up from the batter she was mixing and frowned, looking at Clementine, then Ellie, then back at Clementine again. Ellie felt a pit open up in her stomach like a trap, because sure, they shouldn't stop here for ages, not if they didn't want to risk anyone coming after them - but where the hell were they headed, besides away? And what were they going to do when they got there?

Clementine looked back and pursed her lips, thoughtful. "Could ride with you back to Ridgeway," she offered. "Butcher shop's still there."

"It's my sister and her husband's now, and she might not be too happy to see me coming around again after all," Ruth said. "And there's still the memories back there. You two going to find another whorehouse to work in?"

Ellie made a soft noise, involuntary, and they both looked at her, which meant she had to say something. "Don't know if I could," she admitted, and took another bite of her beefsteak. "It wasn't so bad working for Ada, while we were waiting for them to show up, but that was 'cause there was an end in sight." She hadn't had a real nice first time to start her off, even if she'd ever had much interest in men in the first place.

"It's the only thing I know how to do," Clementine said, looking back at her, and "Girls - Ellie, especially, I don't know what I'm doing, do you hear me? I took off after Rufus because it was that or sit down in the ashes and weep until I died. I figured out how to chase him, sure, but..."

But she hadn't been real careful about how she did it, and she'd sold off most of her jewelry on the way, or just flat out stole to keep going, even if she tried to keep it to stealing from bandits. She'd told Ellie that before. 

"Then maybe we're the ones who shouldn't leave you alone," Ruth said, and, "Listen. I don't know if you two have much education, but the Homestead Act of '62 lets women claim land the same as men if they farm it for five years. You just have to be twenty-one and a citizen..."

"I'm not much of a farmer," Clementine said.

"You're getting old to be a whore," Ruth said. "Look, a girl your age should be looking to go into the business end of things, shouldn't she? You like managing girls better? Because half the time Ellie doesn't do what you tell her to and she's head over her heels for you _and_ in your bed most nights."

Ellie's face was probably hotter than the skillet now. She buried it in her hands while Clementine told Ruth to do something Ellie was pretty sure wasn't possible with her spoon.

"Yeah, I thought so," Ruth said, unperturbed, and started pouring out batter onto the skillet. 

Ellie lifted her head tentatively. She hadn't been sure Ruth had _noticed_ , although that was probably stupid, Ellie was kind of old to hide from nightmares in somebody else's bedroll and she wasn't that quiet either.

"So we find somewhere to settle down," Ruth said when she was sure Clementine wasn't going to keep arguing. "We can make it a town if you don't want to farm. There might be enough cash in those saddle bags to get us a butcher shop started. We say my husband died on the trail..."

"And us?" Clementine asked. "Because in _my_ experience men only ignore girls like us if they're getting a piece of the action on the regular."

"You two can be sisters, or cousins, whatever you want to say," Ruth said. "You've both got light hair, that's good enough. And sure, half the folks'll know you're lying, but then so did I, and that turned alright, didn't it?"

Clementine humphed under her breath, but she concentrated on her food after that. 

Ellie hung back some after they ate and helped Ruth scrub the dishes. Clementine had gone off to check on the horses before bed. "Ruth?" she said, kind of quiet, when she was pretty sure Clementine was out of earshot.

"Yeah?"

"How long've you been thinking about that? About the three of us, staying together, I mean?"

"Oh, probably since we nearly caught up with Rufus's gang in Fort Kearny and I thought it might be over soon," Ruth said. "I knew Clementine wasn't going to think of it - not the way she went on about wanting 'em dead every goddamned waking moment - and you probably wouldn't figure out what to do."

"I'm not _that_ young," Ellie said. "I could've been married if I wanted to, back before - before it happened."

"Nah, but you'd never been on your own before, so you didn't have any practice." Ruth sighed. "Back before I met Thomas, my sister and I had about a year without any men around after our parents died, so I had time to sort through my options back then. Should be easier now I'm a widow." 

She sighed, face gone distant for a moment; she talked shit about Thomas near every time he came up, but Ellie still remembered the way it took her near a week to take anything but water after Clementine went and pulled her off his corpse. "Anyway, it's an excuse," she said, finally.

"What if Clementine doesn't want to?" Ellie asked. "I mean, it took me ages to get her to even sit at the campfire with me, I had to wear her down." 

"Honey, if she wanted to get rid of you for real she wouldn't have messed around letting you catch her over and over." Ruth laughed. "Whores have lots of tricks, don't you listen to her stories? She'd have done you like some of her customers, gave you a drink with opium in it and been miles away before you woke up with no clue which direction to go to follow. She does want you around."

"Yeah. Yeah, she would've," Ellie said, and blushed again. "I'm an idiot."

"Everyone's stupid about love the first time around," Ruth said, and sighed. " _Especially_ Thomas."


End file.
